DARKNESS TO LIGHT

Darkness to Light empowers adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse through awareness, education, and stigma reduction.

Darkness to Light uses a social behavior change (SBC) approach to our prevention work. SBC is an evidence-informed approach for enabling changes at individual, community, and societal levels to improve health and overall well-being. It utilizes the understanding that behaviors are grounded in traditions and cultural norms that workplaces, communities, and countries have engaged in for generations; therefore, these behaviors are deeply entrenched in their everyday lives and can be difficult to change. In order to evoke change, SBC addresses issues with awareness, misinformation, and barriers that prevent individuals from practicing prevention behaviors that will ultimately end child sexual abuse. Evidence guides our work and decision-making, from design to impact. This allows for constant learning and improvement.

More than just increasing adults’ awareness of child sexual abuse and the risks, an SBC intervention first identifies the specific audiences to target at various societal levels and then identifies and addresses the range of individual and social factors influencing their willingness and ability to take action to prevent child sexual abuse.

Darkness to Light’s theory of change, Prevention Paradigm for Child Sexual Abuse, is evidence-informed by our nearly 20 years of program experience, a series of surveys conducted among implementers of CSA programs and key stakeholder interviews in 2018, and a review of CSA prevention literature published between 2008 to 2018. Our work targets four main audiences; Adults with Political Power and Social Influence, Adults in the Community, Adults in Youth-Serving Organizations, and Adults in the Family. It is the belief that through the increase of confidence, beliefs, social support, and change in risk perception around child sexual abuse adults at all levels of society can:

1. Engage in prevention conversations with other adults and children;
2. Enact prevention policies where children live-learn-play;
3. Enforce prevention practices where children live-learn-play.

As the leader in child sexual abuse prevention, Darkness to Light's experienced leadership and unique approach to child protection is focused on internal capacity toward three goal areas for social change: comprehensive prevention programming, advocacy for stakeholder engagement, and training to improve awareness and skills among adults. Darkness to Light's hiring, employee training, and organizational culture has been designed to capitalize on capabilities that aid these three goals and reflect not only diverse work experience and skills, but also diverse communities and their experiences. With a vast network of volunteer partners who are the experts in their local communities and their needs for child protection, Darkness to Light plays a role as technical advisors and empowerment partners. Darkness to Light is a leader in innovative methodologies for social change that not only bring about awareness, but the behaviors necessary to protect children, including innovations in behavior change theory and adult education. With an innovative funding model, Darkness to Light has build a diverse funding base for more than 20 years and continues to grow through individual donations, corporate gifts, grants, and partnerships.

Darkness to Light focuses on three areas of support to achieve child sexual abuse prevention:

I. Comprehensive Prevention Programming
We work with a diverse range of partners including youth serving and youth-adjacent organizations, helping them to tailor prevention programs that fit their needs. We start by identifying the behavioral problem to be solved and the specific audiences to target for behavior change. We use qualitative and quantitative methods to inform program design, and then we monitor and evaluate change. We use results to iterate and improve programming and to ensure that we are creating meaningful and sustainable change.
Recent examples include designing tailored behavior change programs for clinical and non-medical staff in pediatricians’ offices to enable them to initiate conversations with caregivers and patients about CSA prevention, and establishing child safeguarding standards for youth-serving organizations.

II. Advocacy for Stakeholder Engagement and Ownership
Darkness to Light works with stakeholders at community, state and federal level to empower influential adults to speak out and take action against child sexual abuse. Through the use of evidence-based advocacy strategies, we empower caregivers, community leaders, government officials and the media to motivate their constituents, congregants, and communities to take preventive action, to demand improved resources for child sexual abuse prevention research and programs, and to improve systems so they are protective of children and reduce their risk for child sexual abuse.

III. Training to Improve Awareness and Skills among Adults
Child sexual abuse prevention starts with knowledge and awareness of the problem. We understand that adult learners come to us with diverse personal and professional experiences, as well as other, often competing life obligations that can make it difficult to dedicate time to learning. Darkness to Light training is built to acknowledge and respond to these realities.
To increase engagement and thus the potential for behavior change, we enrich learning by incorporating reflection and discussion opportunities, granting learners the opportunity to apply prior knowledge and consider the positive impacts of child sexual abuse prevention in their own lives and communities. This increases relevance and motivation, and for adults with time constraints and competing priorities, it answers.